Before filling out your NCAA Tournament office pool – certain that you’re the big cheese because you know national-champ Florida returns all five starters and that Kansas is a lock to get out of the first round because the Jayhawks haven’t done that the past two seasons – don’t overlook these four teams.

Bradley, Southern Illinois, Washington State and Winthrop aren’t as talented as the Gators and don’t have the tradition of the Jayhawks. But all four won yesterday, are in the Top 30 in the nation in scoring defense, and could put the madness in March.

Every Wednesday night during the offseason you could find the Butler Bulldogs at Woodland Lanes on the corner of 96th and Kingston in Indianapolis talking about ball movement as they tried to convert the 7-10 split.

“One of our strengths is that we keep the ball moving from one side to the other side,” said star guard A.J. Graves.

For a moment, it’s not clear if we’re talking bowling or basketball. “The bowling is just for pride and bragging rights,” adds Graves. “Most of us don’t know really know the proper technique.”

Despite losing Horizon Conference player of the year Brandon Polk and being picked seventh in the nine-team Horizon League, the Bulldogs know how to win. They opened the season by winning the Preseason NIT in the Garden after getting knocked out of the Postseason NIT, by Florida State, 67-63. “After that loss, I heard the players talking about wanting more,” coach Todd Lickliter said. “So we asked them what would it take; what investment would they make?”

They invested in bowling bonding. They lifted weights. They played pickup games that were so intense, players got knocked down like pins. The Bulldogs almost surely will receive an at-large berth if they don’t win the Horizon League tournament. Graves knows most college basketball fans won’t pick the Bulldogs to get out of the first round.

“I think that would be a mistake,” he said. “We’re not some little, biddy team that’s just going to be excited to get there and play one game. We want to go on a roll.”

Rolling around on the football field – doing headstands to tumblesaults – was bad enough. But at 6 a.m., with all that black mud and wet, loose turf getting into the player’s hair and inside their socks, that was nasty. “It was mutual hatred,” said Southern Illinois star Jamal Tatum. “The whole team hated it. And nobody would tell us why we were doing it.” “I guess it improved our flexibility,” Tatum added. “And it got us closer, no question about that.”

Southern Illinois’ unity was tested when Tatum, who won MVC Player of the Year honors, was charged with DUI, stripped of his captaincy and suspended for the first three games.

“Jamal didn’t realize how many people he let down,” SIU coach Chris Lowery said. “We think of ourselves as the Gonzaga of the Midwest. There’s a responsibility that comes with that.”

Southern Illinois is as responsible on defense as a corporate accountant is on April 15. The Salukis are fourth in the nation in defense (56.2 points), and their RPI of 4 is ahead of Wisconsin and just behind North Carolina.

Tatum says that after five straight trips to the NCAA Tournament, the nation knows the Salukis.

“They’re Egyptian hunting dogs,” Tatum said. “They look like they need to be fed a little more. We know how they feel. We’re hungry, too.”

They don’t have a name for the hill in Sunnyside Park in Pullman, Wash., but it was cursed at and puked on last summer more than any innocent mound of earth deserves.

Every Friday after lifting weights, the Washington State Cougars would head to “The Hill” and run 16 sprints from bottom to top – each within 30 seconds.

“I remember looking at the guys after the first day or two and I could see it in their eyes,” sophomore forward Devan Harmeling said. “This season was going to be different.”

Fresh off an 11-17 season and picked to finish dead last in the Pac 10, Washington State is 23-6, headed to the Big Dance for the first time since 1994, and ranked for the first time since 1983.

Led by Derrick Low (13.9 points), the Cougars – second in the nation in turnover (10.4) – don’t beat themselves.

On the last day the Cougars ran “The Hill,” coach Tony Bennett took a page out of Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan’s book. He planted the flags of the other Pac 10 teams atop the hill.

“[Washington’s] Jon Brockman and I talk on the phone every now and then,” said Harmeling. “After we beat them, he called me and said, ‘You guys are for real. You’re a Top 10 team. Nobody should overlook you.'”

WINTHROP EAGLES

Key results: lost 73-66 at North Carolina; lost 71-60 at Maryland; lost 82-79 in OT at Wisconsin; lost 71-51 at Texas A&M; beat Missouri State, 77-66. 28th in scoring defense (60.9 points). RPI: 64.

Dr. Tom Woodruff is a former professor in intervention psychology at the school, but it didn’t take a crisis to get the former Winthrop professor to reach out to coach Gregg Marshall.

While Woodruff watched the Eagles battle North Carolina, Maryland, Wisconsin, Texas A&M, Marquette, Alabama, Memphis and Tennessee, which edged Winthrop, 63-61, in a first-round NCAA Tournament game last season, he began to think of the Eagles as junkyard dogs.

Woodruff purchased a replica doll of the late pro wrestler Junkyard Dog and mailed it to Marshall. After the film session of every game this season, one Eagle is awarded the Junkyard Dog.

“We have kids that have been baptized by fire,” Marshall said.

“They’re tough. Receiving the Junkyard Dog is an honor.”

Winthrop (“Some people still confuse us with Wingate University, a Division II school on the other side of town,” Marshall said) has six players who score between 12.9 and 15.4 points.

Woodruff might find the way the Eagles have bonded a fascinating study. Top scorer Torrell Martin has a ping pong table in his apartment.

“It improves your hand-eye coordination,” Martin said.

The players also engage the coaches in games of charades. “You can’t talk in charades and all of defenses are called with hand signals, so it helps,” Martin added.

Junkyard Dogs, ping pong, charades – this team knows madness.

“We’ll play anyone, anywhere, any time,” said Martin. “We watched George Mason last year and thought, ‘It should have been us.